It’s probably the biggest HR show in Europe, it was the centenary year for the organising trade body but somehow I couldn’t quite make it to the CIPD exhibition in Manchester this year.

It’s a shame because like the Employee Benefits show in London in September it’s an event which lets you get a real insight into what’s going on in organisations now and in the year ahead.

The theme was “leading HR into the future” and judging from the volume of the crackle on social media it was one which hit the mark for those who were there. I have taken time to look through the blogs so if you, like me, didn’t get there here’s what caught my eye on social media:

1)      David de Souza gave the most concise précis of the key note from Gareth Jones and Rob Goffee on creating the best workplace on earth which drew mixed reviews from the other bloggers. If you haven’t seen it, check out David’s crowdsourced book on HR which you can get on Amazon. He also hints on an interesting piece of work he is doing with the CIPD and Dave Ulrich on the future of HR.

2)      Apart from delivering his own keynote where he announced the CIPD would be more active in supporting the needs of smaller and medium businesses, the CIPD’s Peter Cheese really lived the role of the social CEO. Check out his twitter feed and you’ll find a list of the leading HR bloggers and tweeters who are well worth following.

3)      Daniel Pink – the man who prompted us all to rethink how we approach motivation at work (11million youtube views and counting!), was at his provocative best suggesting HR should learn to sell in order to deliver better support to all levels of the business. There’s a nice write-up from HR Magazine’s Katie Jacobs just here. He has a point and I would add that its not just selling but marketing that the discipline needs to get better at.

4)      Talking of which, HR Magazine did a great job of capturing the highlights of all the break-out sessions. There’s some really good stuff in their short write-ups on day one and day two. Not least Jenny Davidson, a former head of benefits and compensation at CSC, told HR delegates to grab hold of the opportunity presented by auto enrolment and rethink the way organisations deliver benefits in favour of choice and personalisation – a theme which we here at Edenred believe is critical for the year ahead.

For all the talk of the death of the trade over the past years, the buzz of CIPD and the reviews of the bloggers certainly made me feel I had missed out this year. Which is why I’ll be putting a date in the diary to go there in 2014.

Andy Philpott is sales and marketing director of Edenred – follow him at @andy_philpott